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i3 Detroit is a member-run non-profit do-it-yourself collective based in Ferndale, Michigan. We have all the electronics and CNC capabilities typical of most hackerspaces, plus a large shop space for noisier, dustier work. Our main site is www.i3detroit.org, and updates are also occasionally posted to Twitter as @i3detroit.

In April 2009, our founder started a website and sent a bunch of emails to people in the community. Also, he listed i3Detroit on this wiki. Meeting weekly in a coffee shop, a small cadre of motivated individuals came together to identify our common goals and take steps to meet them.

On September 4th, 2009, papers were signed giving i3Detroit a lease on 1500 square feet in downtown Royal Oak. We spent the Labor Day holiday, and the following month, renovating the space and building it out. From paint and lightbulbs to drywall and stairs, there was a lot to build and fix.

The woodworking shop

Part of the machine shop

Our Grand Opening party took place on October 3rd, 2009 and officially opened the space. Jim Ellison, the mayor of Royal Oak, came out to perform our ribbon-cutting. (He used an oxyacetylene cutting torch to burn through a piece of ribbon cable stretched across our garage doorway. Why be boring?)

On March 31st, 2010, i3Detroit migrated to its new home in Ferndale, MI. More than 6,000 square feet larger, the new location has over 1,000 square feet of office space and roughly 7,000 square feet of warehouse floor. Amid the sound of saws and compressors, the new space and i3Detroit's first birthday were both celebrated with a barbeque on April 25th, 2010.

Currently, i3 Detroit hovers around 160 dues-paying members and a handful of regular guests, with several people in the space on any given night of the week. Weekends can be very busy. Recurring events and occasional classes dot the calendar, and we usually make a strong showing at local DIY-oriented events. This is nowhere more true than Maker Faire Detroit, where so many projects come from i3 that we get our own large tent each year.

As our membership grows, serendipitous personal connections get less guaranteed, and deliberate community is playing a larger role. Years ago, we appointed coordinators to serve as points-of-contact for individual zones within the space, and this has worked well. More recently, we've added explicit coordination positions for classes/events and a few other things, and this seems to be helping too.